Animal History: The Dogs and the Jackals
by Balin Lord of Moria
Summary: More history and culture of two Animal species that came to live alongside the ThunderCats on Third Earth. This time it's the Dogs and their close relations, the Jackals. Prepare for both cuteness and savagery. All except Kaynar, Shen, Dobo, Jorma, and Tookit are OC's.


**Disclaimer:** I do not own _ThunderCats 2011_.

**A/N:** I love dogs, especially domesticated dogs, so be prepared for the naming of a lot of breeds of domestic dogs, as well as several kinds of wild dogs.

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_**Animal History: The Dogs and the Jackals**_

Once, in a time before this day, many races lived on varied worlds scattered throughout the known galaxy. One race that existed on its own planet was the Dog species. These canine sentients were known for their strength (though they were not as strong as their neighbors, the Monkeys), their intelligence (less than the Birds, but still good), and their sense of loyalty to those whom they bonded with, whether fellow Dogs or members of another race or species. Like so many Animal races throughout the galaxy, they lived it mostly rough and in touch with nature, building towns and homes for themselves, but making them out of simple substances like wood and stone, rather than forged metal.

Part of their culture was their love of planned gladiatorial battles in arenas that were set up in most of the towns on their planet. The Dogs had a passion for watching each other fight to see who was the strongest among them. Not all Dogs participated in these tough fights, but those that did intended to become the fittest fighters among their race, because the Dogs followed the philosophy, "Survival of the Fittest." However, they didn't love battles so much that they idolized violence, and they did have a peaceful side. They were usually humble creatures, too, at least, when compared to the proud Monkeys and the arrogant Birds, due to their fierce sense of loyalty and duty to their confederates. Some who met them in later ages wouldn't believe this, at first, but the Dogs were even capable of showing mercy to people, even if they were deadly criminals or enemy soldiers.

Many races and breeds of the Dogs existed. The Dogs didn't exactly have a caste system, but they did consider some of their kind to be destined for greater things than others. The greatest of the Dog species were the Jackals, a very strong race that stood out for its destiny to guard and protect the other Dog races. They were, for the most part, a gallant, elite group of men-at-arms with great agility and indomitability in combat. However, because they were so skilled and so strong, they seldom took part in gladiatorial fights, unless it was a fight of Jackal versus Jackal, or Jackal versus a very powerful off-worlder. Indeed, the Jackals did not very often participate in the leisure and pleasures of most of the other Dogs, for it was their mission in life to protect, defend, and wage wars. However, there were other Dog races that counted among the wild Dogs, and they had some more freedom than the Jackals. They included such Animals as the Wolves, Foxes, Wild Dogs, and Coyotes. Wolves and Wild Dogs were known for being macho fighters themselves, but they didn't rank as highly as the Jackals in the Dog world. Foxes and Coyotes were a little softer, but they, too, were among the "tough guys" in their species. They spent a lot of their time in bars, drinking and carousing when they weren't fighting, and generally making fools of themselves. Raccoons also lived on this world, and they tended to be sneaky little beasts, indulging in things ranging from pickpocketing to con artistry. They were somewhat less trustworthy than the other Dogs, but the others tolerated their existence, because the Dogs were principled enough not to destroy one of their own races.

Technically, the Jackals made up the majority population on the Dog planet, but there were also a very sizeable number of domesticated Dog breeds living in Dog society, and they too had different ways of living life and fulfilling their destinies. The toughest and boldest of them were the Doberman Pinschers and the Rottweilers. Dobermans ran the arenas where the gladiatorial fights took place, and they also served as the Planetary Guard in case of military emergencies. Sometimes, they took part in the fights themselves. The Rottweilers served as the bulk of the police forces in the Dog communities. Most other Dogs feared them more than any other Dog breed, and for good reason, for while other, lesser Dogs sometimes worked as constables, too, the Rottweilers acted like "Dirty Harry" or "Matt Cordell" super cops, baring and gnashing their teeth and threatening to tear apart the worse offenders. Other tough Dogs included the Bulldogs, the Pit Bulls, and the German Shepherds, which lived more civilized lives, but were still fond of doing a lot of the harder work. German Shepherds supplemented the Rottweilers as cops. Pit Bulls ran and guarded the casinos that existed all over the planet, for gambling was legal on the Dog world, and sometimes the Pit Bulls liked to take part in the gambling themselves, even in fights like those in the gladiator pits. And Bulldogs served as gatekeepers and guards at the arenas and the government buildings.

But not all the Dogs were tough and macho musclemen. The females were usually less interested in the fights, and many more soft-spoken breeds and races existed alongside the tough ones. Sheepdogs were some of the dogs that stayed at home and kept house, usually the females, as the males were often too lazy to do it, while Poodles and Bichon Frisés were the chief entertainment of their people, strutting their stuff at floor shows and showing off their glorious coats of fluffy fur. Golden and Labrador Retrievers ran businesses, with Labradors usually acting as chefs and waiters at various eateries (one Labrador was known to own a very famous diner), and Golden ones dealing with matters like mail, package deliveries, moving truck drivers, and banking, but not insurance. Golden Retrievers found that business too drab and dull, so it was usually left to the Mastiffs.

And some Dogs were simple laypeople, doing a variety of careers, but living close to home and taking life in stride. They were mostly the peaceful types, like Mini-Australian Shepherds, Cocker Spaniels, Beagles, Chihauhaus, Pugs, Bloodhounds, Miniature Pinschers, Greyhounds, Dalmatians, and many more, plus a wide variety of mixed breeds, like Puggles, Cheagles, Chugs, Goldendoodles, Labradoodles, Chinooks, Miniature Rottweilers, Rottermans, Schnoodles, etc.

Like Monkeys and Birds, Dogs have had their share of heroes, villains, and ordinary good-deed-doers. Early in the existence of the Dogs, a mighty Jackal named Naysar organized all the Dogs together when their original home world was going to be destroyed and brought them in a mother ship to their then-present home planet, which they easily adopted as their own. And there were no other sentient beings living on the planet at the time, so they didn't have to worry about integrating or conquering other people when they got there. Naysar was much loved as a hero figure to the Dog and Jackal races as a whole. Besides him, there was also a fox named Korser, and she was a politician who proposed integrating the Dogs into one society, because on their indigenous planet, they had been divided up for many a year. Korser, too, was much loved, although there were some Dogs that felt that she was wrong, and they were better off as a divided species, due to the occasional conflicts between the races and the breeds. A Rottweiler constable known as Schwarz, or "Schwarz the Slick," went down in history as a cop who stopped an illegal gun smuggling ring within the first several days of his career. Everyone thought he was "slick" enough to slide right through all the dead ends and find the necessary evidence to arrest and convict the crooks, a group of bloodthirsty Bulldogs and Pit Bulls, and a corrupt District Attorney named Fletcher, an Australian Shepherd. A good politician named Maurice the Mastiff met with the orangutan astronaut, Denali, and helped the Dog planet join the peaceful Animal Confederation. And Tex Mexan, a Labrador, owned, as stated above, a very fine, classy diner called Tex's Diner during the Golden Age of the Dogs, which took place from the organization on their adopted world, to shortly before a future event involving Mumm-Ra the Ever-Living.

The laypeople, or laydogs, as they could also be called, lived lives mostly out of the spotlight, but a few individuals of each race stood out for some good (or bad) deeds. A male Beagle runt named Roo was popular for making snow sculptures unlike any others when he was a little Puppy. A female Pug named Suzanne loved to play with the Puppies more than anything else, and she didn't approve of the traditional Dog practice of gladiatorial fights, saying it was barbaric, and wishing more people would listen to people like her, which didn't happen in the long run. A mischievous Dalmatian called Fire-Hound tricked his fellow Dalmatians into thinking there was a fire at the old schoolhouse near their HQ, but was reprimanded and demoted, and taught a lesson by his mother, after it turned out to be a false alarm. Dalmatians were the traditional firemen of the Dog world, by the way. And two pals, a Puggle Mutt named Ivy and a Cheagle Mutt named Valery, wanted to see if they could fly a ship of their own making to their planet's moon and back, but it blew up before they could even get inside and take off, and the neighborhood elicited a lot of laughs. Ivy and Valery took a long time to get over that one.

To sum up, most of the Dog species' history was unspectacular. Their adventures were mostly simple, everyday occurrences that were typical of a Dog's life, though the Jackals always readied themselves for a situation where they may have needed to help their people. And at the end of the Dog's Golden Age, it began to happen. Mumm-Ra, the demon lord, appeared and enslaved the Dogs, the Jackals, and many other races of Animals in the Confederation. As has been explained before, they remained in captivity, forced to do Mumm-Ra's evil bidding, until several heroes from a few of the species surfaced one day and rallied their people to free themselves, and then the other Animal races, too. The Dogs and Jackals had a hero among their number, a born-and-bred warrior named Shen, who was both strong and merciful, who helped the other heroes, Leo, Panthera, and Rezard, overthrow Mumm-Ra and save the slaves. It was Shen who decided that Mumm-Ra, despite his great and infinite evil, must be spared in order so that he and his allies would not become the kind of person Mumm-Ra and his henchmen were.

Then, of course, they landed on Third Earth, or rather, crash-landed. The species each went their own way, though none of them strayed very far away from each other, and like the others, the Dogs built a new community for their race, constructing a gladiatorial arena called the Pit where they would continue their unbroken tradition of watching savage fights of muscle, skill and weapons.

After a long time, however, the Jackals, for some unknown reason, seemed to drop out of sight and relinquished their duties as guardians of the Dogs, but by then, the Dogs had learned how to get along without them. The Cats of Thundera, though, considered the Dogs to be lower life forms than they were, less culturally advanced, as they put it, and often treated the Dogs as lower-class citizens, and the Dogs didn't appreciate this. Nonetheless, most of the Dog races survived Mumm-Ra's slavery and the trip to Third Earth, and their new society wasn't too different from their old one.

Once again, most Dogs didn't stand out in society very well when it came to their Animal neighbors, but they continued to live their lives the way they wanted to, or at least the laydogs did. That started to change in most recent history, when a leader of some of the Dogs named Dobo, a Doberman, befriended Panthro the ThunderCat and later agreed to show mercy to two Cats fighting in the Pit, even joining his people in the fight against the returned Mumm-Ra's latest army, to defend Third Earth. There was also Jorma, a Dog who loved technology and was a friend of Lion-O, Lord of the ThunderCats, and Tookit, a mischievous Raccoon man who pickpocketed people of the City of Dogs, the chief civilized community of the Dogs on Third Earth.

Finally, to get fully up to date on Dog and Jackal history, a ravenous, psychopathic Jackal named Kaynar suddenly surfaced at about the same time and joined the ranks of Mumm-Ra's generals with Addicus the Monkey and Vultaire the Vulture Bird. He, of course, was nothing like the noble Shen. Kaynar was a mental case, very violent and ravenous, and his conscience appeared to be dead; he wasn't ashamed of any of the vile actions he did, or attempted to do. And as was the case with Addicus and the Monkeys, Mumm-Ra hoped Kaynar could convince many of his people, perhaps even all of them, to join him in his war against the ThunderCats.

The days on Third Earth are dark ones, but maybe, with Dobo and the Dogs on their side and the Dogs considering giving up their gladiatorial barbarism, brighter days may be yet to come.


End file.
